View full sizeYuxing Zheng/The OregonianOak Grove resident Rachel Martell chats with Russ Dickman as she signs an initiative petition seeking Clackamas County voter approval before the county can pay $25 million for the $1.5 billion Portland-Milwaukie light rail line. Russ Dickman manned the drive-through signature booth, converted from a summer berry stand, outside The Bomber Restaurant & Catering for at least a week after petitions started circulating Feb. 9.

OREGON CITY -- Organizers of a Clackamas County anti-rail petition turned in 11,855 signatures today in hopes of sending the measure onto the Sept. 18 special election ballot.

Organizers needed to collect 9,378
valid signatures for the effort to qualify. The Clackamas County Elections Office will use a statistical sampling method to determine by March 20 if enough valid signatures were submitted.

About 1,000 to 2,000 volunteers helped gather signatures along with five to eight paid signature gatherers, said James Knapp, one of the co-chief petitioners along with Lake Oswego City Councilor Mary Olson and Damascus Mayor Steve Spinnett. About 8,000 signatures were gathered in the first six days after petitions started circulating Feb. 9.

"They were easy to get," Knapp said. "People are mad ... that we don't have the right to vote on high-density housing and light rail. The bottom line is debt. People want out of debt. Clackamas County keeps putting debt on us without a vote of
the people."

TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said the petition effort -- and a similar one under way in Milwaukie -- would only apply to future rail projects and not to the $25 million contract Clackamas County already signed. "We have said many times that we believe this is a legally binding agreement," she said.

The petitions will have no effect on TriMet's $750 million federal funding agreement for the project, she said, because commitments for the required $750 million local match have already been secured.

"This is not a threat to the federal funding package," she said. "All of our commitments are in place, so we feel it is a strong project that will receive federal funding."

Officials expect the federal agreement to become official in late spring.